linkIn an extraordinary act of regional cooperation, Israel, Iran, Jordan, and Turkey are to jointly provide funds for a particle accelerator as part of their commitment to a UNESCO-sponsored scientific project, it was announced on Wednesday.
Each of the four countries has pledged $5 million toward the SESAME facility, which is being built near Amman. SESAME stands for Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East. According to the UNESCO website, the project aims to "foster scientific and technological excellence in the Middle East and neighboring countries (and prevent or reverse brain drain) by enabling world-class research," and to "build scientific and cultural bridges between neighboring countries."
Could science be both central to the nuclear dispute and key to resolving it peacefully? Sadly, the SESAME project has been as much a source of tension as teamwork. Last year, the Financial Times noted that two Iranian scientists who had worked at the center -- Massoud Ali Mohammadi and Majid Shahriari -- had died under mysterious circumstances in the course of a year.
Some speculate that their involvement in SESAME "exposed the scientists to suspicion that they were complicit in sabotaging Iran's nuclear program," the FT explained. "In Tehran's political and diplomatic circles, the killing of Ali Mohammadi was seen as a possible act of revenge by the regime" (at the time of Ali Mohammadi's death, an Iranian researcher who was also involved in the project maintained that there were no direct meetings between his delegation and the Israelis). Iranian news outlets and officials blamed both deaths on Israel and the West.
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The news today about cooperation on SESAME is heartening, of course. But we have a long way to go between particles and peace.
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